


Daughter of Eve

by imaginary_golux



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Kissing, Temporary Amnesia, Ten Years Later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 03:38:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13650639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: Tumnus wakes up to discover that Narnia has changed a bit.Beta by my Best Beloved, Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw.





	Daughter of Eve

Tumnus wakes up in an unfamiliar bed. This is not actually _utterly_ unusual - he is a faun, after all, though admittedly when he wakes up in unfamiliar places they’re as likely to be forest groves or mossy grottos as _beds_ \- but he can’t remember how he got here, not even the blurred glory of one of Bacchus’s revels, so that’s a little distressing.

He opens his eyes to see two...women...staring down at him. They’re not dryads or water spirits, they’re not dwarves or centaurs, they’re…

“By Aslan,” he gasps aloud, “you’re Daughters of Eve.”

“...Yes,” the one on his right says. She has hair the color of chestnuts and laughing eyes. The one on his left has hair like midnight and is so beautiful it’s a little intimidating. “Tumnus, are you feeling alright?”

“That _was_ a nasty fall you had,” the woman on his left says. “Does your head pain you?” She reaches out to rub her fingers over what is, Tumnus learns, a _painful_ lump on the side of his head. He winces, and she snatches her hand away quickly. “I do apologize.”

Tumnus sits up slowly, the woman on his right moving to support him. There’s a window looking out over what _must_ be Narnia - he can see Talking Animals and centaurs patrolling the walls of a great castle, with sprawling gardens tended by dryads and fauns - but it’s _summer_ , beautiful impossible summer.

Ah. This must be a very odd dream. Or - possibly this is Aslan’s country?

“Gracious ladies,” he says, “it seems you know me well, but I fear I do not know you.”

The woman on his right winces. “I’m Lucy,” she says. “Well. Queen Lucy. And this is my sister, Queen Susan the Gentle.”

“I’m lying down in front of _queens?_ ” Tumnus squeaks, and tries to get up, to bow, to do - _something_ -

“Tumnus!” Queen Lucy snaps, holding him still with a strong hand on his shoulder. “Tumnus, do you - do you not remember us?” She looks stricken at the thought.

“Majesty,” Tumnus says, wincing at the pain in Queen Lucy’s eyes. “I do not.”

“Oh... _damn_ ,” Queen Lucy says, and Queen Susan reaches across the bed to touch her sister’s shoulder.

“My dear,” she says, “he has only just awoken. Do you spend the day showing him the familiar sights - ten years of memory cannot go missing so easily, I am sure.”

“Ten _years_?” Tumnus says, greatly dismayed. “Then - it _is_ summer? Truly?”

“Truly,” Queen Lucy says, smiling a little. “You helped us defeat the White Witch, and Aslan brought the spring again. Come; let me show you Cair Paravel.”

Tumnus gets up, carefully, head reeling for more reasons than the knot upon it, and takes Queen Lucy’s arm, and follows her out of the room. He thinks this feels familiar. He thinks, somehow, he’s done this before: followed Queen Lucy, trusting utterly in her guidance, into the unknown.

Cair Paravel is a beautiful castle, and apparently everyone in it knows him. Tumnus recognizes a few of them, dryads and Animals and a noble-looking centaur he’s made acquaintance with in the past, but most of the greetings he has to return with a small smile and the politest words he can find, without letting on that he has _no idea_ who they are.

Most distressing are High King Peter and King Edmund, Queen Lucy’s _other_ siblings, who come across them in the garden, give Tumnus and Queen Lucy knowing looks, and leave again swiftly, commenting that they should give Queen Lucy her privacy. If Tumnus’s companion had been _anyone_ else, he would have known _exactly_ what those sly looks implied, but - a queen? A Daughter of Eve? Surely not. Surely Tumnus has misinterpreted that entirely.

Surely he is not _actually_ the consort to a queen? No, this must be a dream, surely, for Aslan’s country would be less confusing, Tumnus is sure.

But then it is dinner-time, and instead of sending him to the hall where the courtiers eat, Queen Lucy brings him to the royal apartments, and the table has a place laid for him, and a chair made for a faun’s requirements, and the Kings and Queen Susan do not look even a little surprised to see him.

“How is your head?” King Edmund asks as Tumnus sits warily down. “Though I can’t imagine a day in my sister’s company would cause aught _but_ a headache.”

“ _Ed,_ ” Queen Lucy says indignantly. “I don’t give people _headaches_.”

“I hate to disagree, Lu,” King Peter says merrily, “but you rather do.”

“Hmph,” Queen Lucy says, wrinkling her nose at both of them.

“Speaking of headaches,” King Edmund says, “I know we all were hoping that familiar faces and environs would restore your memory, Tumnus, but it appears that is not so?”

“Indeed, it is not, Majesty,” Tumnus says.

“Well,” King Edmund says, “Then it seems to me that it is time to try another route. Here, Lu.” He hands her something across the table, a crystal vial holding a shimmering liquid like the captured light of a star.

“Oh!” Queen Lucy says. “Do you think I should? I know ‘twas given me only for the gravest reasons -”

“To lose so great and good a friend as Tumnus, and so loyal a companion, would be grave indeed,” King Peter says.

“So it would indeed,” Queen Susan says, and Queen Lucy looks at each of her siblings solemnly and then turns to Tumnus.

“A drop of this will heal any wound or ailment,” she says softly. “Will you allow me?”

“...As my Queen wishes,” Tumnus says, thinking to himself that he would _never_ waste a drop of something so precious on a mere faun, but - if all the Kings and Queens of Narnia think it right and proper, who is he to disagree?

“Then hold still,” Queen Lucy says, and stands, opening the vial, to let a single precious droplet fall onto the still-sore lump forming a sort of third horn on Tumnus’s head.

*

Tumnus blinks as the pain of his headache is wiped away as though it had never been, and blinks again as a feeling of wellbeing unlike any he’s ever felt before sweeps through him. He raises his eyes from the table, blinking at King Peter and King Edmund and Queen Susan, and then turns to see Lucy - his Lucy - looking down at him worriedly, the corked vial clutched in one hand.

“Lucy,” he says softly, and rises, cupping her face in both hands, and bends - not so very far - to kiss the queen of his heart.

“Oh, thank _Aslan_ ,” Lucy breathes against his lips, and flings her arms around him tightly.

“...What say we go have dinner with the court, then?” Tumnus hears King Peter say after a few moments, and laughs into the kiss as the other three monarchs make their escape. Lucy doesn’t appear to even notice.

“I thought I’d _lost_ you,” she says, clinging so hard Tumnus can actually feel his ribs creak.

“My queen,” he says quietly, smiling down into her eyes, “fear nothing. Even if I _had_ forgotten you, my heart would have remembered, and I would have loved you yet again.”

“Good,” Lucy says, and kisses him again, his sweet valiant queen staking her claim on the heart which will always - _always_ \- be hers.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 11 of the February Ficlet Challenge.
> 
> I am imaginarygolux on tumblr.


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